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Comment by pandapower2 | Hacker News Reader

Feels like anyone going head to head with Tesla is in for a hard time. It must be very hard to compete with the cachet of Tesla and the speed with which they improve their vehicles.

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the porsche taycan seems like the ideal electric car honestly. If the price is not that ridiculous it'll probably be my first electric vehicle.

I myself was waiting for the Taycan, its looks stunning, and is very impressive, but on pure specs, its actually the same size as a Model 3 Performance, and a little slower... So I just ordered a Model 3 Performance. I currently drive a Model S.

How is that even remotely similar? Wow

The Model 3 Performance and the Taycan? They are about the same size, 0-100, top speed, range, charge rate etc etc.

I'll admit that the Taycan will be very nice looking, but it will also be about twice the price, if going for the same performance.

You know, cars aren't just about performance numbers. Or nobody would buy a Rolls Royce over a Golf GTI.

You don't buy a Porsche for 0 to 100 performance as there are better cars on the market for that. You buy a Porsche because you want the fastest track cars that will best any other car on the Nurburgring. The Taycan will be the fastest production electric car on the Ring.

I think there is a very high chance, that it will be, but right now the M3P, is beating even the BMW M3 and Mercedes C63 AMG around tracks, as shown by Top Gear and others. I do however think that people buy them, because they are performance luxury cars, with a great interior, and great features. Thats why I was looking at it anyway. Unfortunately because of the danish tax system, and when the car will be available, the Model 3 Performance, makes much better sense for me..

Honestly, the Model 3 and the Taycan will probably be miles apart. Some of my own reasons for wanting to wait for the Porsche instead of getting a Tesla:

Handling: There is no way the Tesla will handle similarly to a Porsche. Steering feel, cornering, road feel. Porsche is the king of handling for a reason, and I'm anxious to see what they can accomplish with the low CG of an electric vehicle.

Consistency: The Porsche can keep doing pulls from 100% down to 10% charge consistently with no performance degradation. This was actually Porsche's main focus, an actual electric track car.

Fit and Finish: Again, anybody who's seen both a Porsche and a Tesla up close will know it's not even a competition.

Charge Time: The Porsche will charge twice as fast as a Tesla, which (assuming you can find a fast enough charger) is pretty cool for quick recharges.

>> porsche

>> price is not that ridiculous

This seems like an insanely unlikely combination.

Porsche occupies a very interesting part of the market. At the low end it competes with BMW/Mercedes. At the top end (Turbo S/GT3/GT2) it starts to compete with Aston Martin, then McLaren, then Ferrari/Lamborghini/etc. You can spend £45k for a basic Cayman up to £180k+ for a heavily optioned 911 Turbo S and more for lower volume/limited editions like the GT3, GT2 etc. (ignoring eg the 918)

So where the Taycan as a range places within that is quite relevant. All the signs at the moment are that it will price similar to the 911 ie probably starting at £65-70kish. But we only have one data point which is the £130k for the Turbo trim level.

The all-wheel drive dual motor car it's going to be around 130k USD. With that amount of money you could easily buy now any Model 3 (which could cover the day-to-day) AND another internal combustion engine car. I mean: okay, you'll have to maintain two cars vs. one but still.

Yes, a product that does not currently exist is a good competitor for products you can buy today.

It already exists and it's launching next year... several reviewers have already driven one.

I will re-word my original:

Yes, a product that you can't currently buy is a good competitor for products you can.

And compete with the vast network of superchargers Tesla's already established for themselves...

Electrify America is rolling out their own supercharger equivalent.

And in fact will soon have more 350kw chargers than Tesla.

Really? I haven't seen one yet.

Here's one: https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/08/electrify-america-350-kw...

Ionity is installing 350kw chargers in Europe: https://ionity.eu/en/design-and-tech.html

And so is Fastned: https://fastnedcharging.com/en/blog/post/fastned-opens-its-f...

Do any of these actually operate near 350kw with any production cars yet?

Anyways, it's a good thing for the whole electric vehicle ecosystem that multiple charging options become available. That multiple companies are competing on charging infrastructure is excellent!

> Do any of these actually operate near 350kw with any production cars yet?

Not yet. The Porsche Taycan is launching with 250 kw charging (with 350 kw charging to come in future) but I haven't seen any information on its charge curve. The Tesla Model 3 can charge at 250kw to about 20% state of charge and then it progressively drops off.

Would that just be locations or actual stalls ? Because the number of actual stalls I most often saw here in Germany from e.g Ionity is limited to 2. Which is a no-go for me.

Tesla owners will have access to both networks.

Maybe. Compare the Mercedes EQC to the Tesla Model X. The EQC is quieter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13mNkRtdK84

The EQC has more sophisticated headlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZMNkMadYTQ

And the EQC has voice control (although they really need a better triggering phrase than "Mercedes"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JTew1D5Tk8

I think Tesla's main problem now is that the major car companies will be releasing multiple EVs across multiple brands year after year. It's going to be difficult for Tesla to keep up.

People have been saying this for 5 years now and Tesla didn’t even invent the electric car.

Also... who complains about how loud a Tesla is?

> who complains about how loud a Tesla is?

People who have driven in a Mercedes EQC.

I.e. the Mercedes CEO? Also for the other two.... really? Who t.f. wants voice control in their car? Better lights are nice, sure... but it's a minor improvement (most people drive most of the time by day, and even by night, all car lights are "good enough". I paid 2K EUR to get better lights in my car, and they're great when I have to use them, but even I wouldn't have picked my car based on this criteria.... I even hesitated to give the extra money!)

The EQC also has better fit and finish and is cheaper than the Model X.

Compare UK prices for the EQC: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/mercedes-benz/eqc/specs

And the Model X: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/modelx/design?redirect=no#batter...

Voice input is very nice, esp for addresses in navigation. Controlling anything other than entertainment? Not helpful.

Mercedes has a voice controlled GPS navigator in older C models. It never understood where you want to go and the text input is atrouciously useless, just like the TV on screen keyboards. If you had it, you'd probably ended up using a paper map since it has way better ergonomics.

> Better lights are nice, sure... but it's a minor improvement

I love my fancy $10k headlights, they're a huge improvement when speeding through euro highways in the middle of the night. There's just nowhere for the cops (or anything else) to hide.

Yeah.. I've been hearing this since the Tesla Roasters came out in 2008. Yet, nothing in the market has yet to compete with the 2012 Model S when it comes to range/performance.

Here's the Porsche Taycan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP9kokeyxGU

If you try to do the same in a Model S you'll just overheat it.

Dunno, at Autobahn speeds (~155mph) both the 3 and S seemed way noisier than a 3L straight-six BMW 7er.

Tons of road noise, tons of wind noise. Although the Teslas had worse tires on them.

Part of the problem with Tesla though is that things like the stock tyres really aren't as good as they should be for a car costing what they do.

Tesla isn't the only one making poor tire choices, the BMW G12 came with awful noisy all season run-flats. At least they were rated for appropriate speeds though.

Given that Tesla isn't even trying to make nice cars the bad tires seem far less surprising.

The Model 3 Performance comes with the excellent Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. No complaints here.

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